Mumford & Sons play to massive Glastonbury crowd

Mumford and Sons played one of the biggest shows of their career so far tonight (June 24) at Glastonbury, second from top on the Other Stage at the Worthy Farm event.

The band attracted an enormous crowd to their show – but admitted before they played that their nerves had got to them.

Singer Marcus Mumford told NME that the band were “shit-scared” about their performance, despite having played the festival before. “We’ve basically spent the past four years shit-scared,” he said. “I’m more nervous this year than I was last year.” The band played the John Peel Stage at the 2010 event.

Multi-instrumentalist Ben Lovett, also speaking before the show, said he was spending his Glastonbury weekend this year not on the band’s tourbus, but in a cottage near the site. “Jesus – that’s not the Ben I knew and loved,” banjo player Winston Marshall quipped.

The band also talked about their second album, which they plan to record this summer, admitting that they still don’t know which of the new songs they’ve been playing recently have made the final cut. “But we have a good solid bunch [of songs],” said Lovett. “In America we’ve been playing half new, half old, which means like, five or six new songs a night.”

“We feel really urgent about it,” added Marcus about getting around to recording the follow-up to 2009’s ‘Sigh No More’.

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The band played for an hour and 15 minutes, during which they expressed their pleasure and surprise at having such a high-profile slot. Lovett asked the crowd who would be watching Beyonce play on Sunday, leading Marshall to say: “But she clashes with The Streets, mate!”

NME.COM is coming live from Glastonbury 2011 this weekend – stay tuned to NME.COM/festivals/glastonbury for news reports, reviews and photos from Worthy Farm. Then head back from Monday for backstage video interviews.